Shopify lets businesses of all sizes run an online shop without building the plumbing themselves. It is hosted, it is well supported, and a great deal of what you need works straight out of the box.
But is it right for your business? Here is an honest look at what makes Shopify tick, with the drawbacks given the same space as the selling points.
Pros of using Shopify
- Plenty of features and customisation. You can build a shop that reflects your brand rather than looking like everyone else’s, provided you put the design work in.
- Easy to get going. You do not need prior experience of website design or development. The theme editor lets you rearrange sections, change colours and swap images without touching code.
- Somebody else runs the infrastructure. Hosting, security patching, PCI compliance and scaling are Shopify’s problem rather than yours. If a product suddenly takes off, the shop stays up.
- A large app ecosystem. Reviews, subscriptions, accounting, shipping labels, email marketing: most things you might want exist as an app, so you can add features without writing code.
- Support and documentation. Shopify offers support around the clock, backed by a very large help centre and a library of free guides and courses. The channels on offer change from time to time, so check what is currently available if that matters to you.
- Fast pages without much effort. Slow loading costs you sales in ecommerce, and Shopify’s hosting and themes give you a decent starting point. You can still ruin it by installing twenty apps.
- Multiple sales channels. One product catalogue can feed your shop, your social accounts and marketplaces, so stock levels and orders stay in one place instead of three.
- You can try it before you commit. Shopify runs a short free trial, normally followed by a heavily discounted introductory period of a few months. That is long enough to build a shop and find out whether you enjoy working in it.
Cons of using Shopify
- It is a closed platform. You work within Shopify’s rules. Real changes mean working in its own templating language, and some things you cannot alter at all, the checkout on the lower plans among them.
- The costs stack up. The monthly plan is only the start. Add Shopify’s cut of each sale, a further fee per order if you use a payment provider other than Shopify Payments, possibly a premium theme, and a handful of apps each with its own monthly charge. Work out your real monthly total before you commit, not the headline price.
- Shops can look generic. A stock theme with your logo on it looks like a stock theme with your logo on it. Standing out takes proper design work, and that is a cost people forget to budget for.
- Advanced work needs a developer. Anything beyond what the theme editor and apps can do means code. Our Shopify developers spend a fair part of their week on exactly that sort of job.
- Fixed URL structures. Shopify insists on its own prefixes in your web addresses: products sit under /products/, collections under /collections/, blog posts under /blogs/. You cannot remove them, which is clunky if you care about tidy addresses.
- Content is something of an afterthought. The blogging and page building tools are basic next to WordPress. If your site is mostly guides, articles or services with a small shop attached, this will frustrate you.
- You are renting, not owning. Shopify can change its pricing, its rules or its features and you adapt around it. For plenty of owners that is a fair trade for not running servers. For others it is precisely why they self host instead.
So who is Shopify actually right for?
It tends to suit:
- Shops selling a defined range of physical products, where the catalogue really is the site.
- Businesses that would rather pay a monthly fee than manage hosting, updates and security themselves.
- Anyone who wants to be selling in a few weeks rather than a few months.
- Owners who want to add products and change prices themselves without ringing anybody first.
It suits you less well if your margins are thin enough that a cut of every sale genuinely hurts, if your pricing or trade ordering rules are unusual, if the shop is a small part of a content heavy site, or if you need control over every last detail of the checkout. If one of those is you, say so before the build rather than after it.
FAQ
How much does Shopify cost?
Shopify charges a monthly subscription, with several tiers, plus a percentage of each sale. The subscription rises as you move up the tiers while the transaction rate falls, so the cheapest plan is not always the cheapest option. Add premium themes and apps on top. Check the current figures on Shopify directly, because they change.
Can I move my Shopify shop somewhere else later?
Yes, but it takes work. Products, customers and orders can be exported, though your theme and apps cannot come with you, and the new site has to be built. The important part is redirects: your old Shopify web addresses must point at the new ones or you lose your search rankings.
Is Shopify better than WooCommerce?
Neither is better. Shopify is less work to look after and gets you selling faster, but you pay monthly and give up control. WooCommerce on WordPress has no platform fee and no cut of your sales, but you own the hosting, the updates and the security. Pick based on how much upkeep you want.
Do I need a developer to launch a Shopify shop?
Not to launch a basic one. A stock theme, your products and the standard payment and shipping settings will get you trading. A developer earns their fee when you want the shop to look like your brand, when you need a feature no app covers, or when you are migrating an existing shop without losing rankings.
Let’s wrap up
Shopify is a good platform rather than a magic one. If you want a shop you can run yourself, that stays up, and that has you selling quickly, it is a sensible choice. If you want no monthly fees and control over every detail, it is not the one.
If you want help designing, building or customising your Shopify store, why not give the Manchester Shopify experts a call on 0161 250 5040 and have a chat with one of our team, or send us a message. We like strong, clean code and sound SEO practice, and we will tell you plainly if Shopify is the wrong fit for what you sell. We are based in Sale, South Manchester.
